Next-Generation Simulations and Serious Games for Peacebuilding

USIP has announced a very interesting workshop on “Next-Generation Simulations and Serious Games for Peacebuilding” to be held in Washington DC on July 16—more information at the link.

NGOs and civilian agencies routinely risk scarce resources – and often their lives – in conflict zones around the world. Recent advances in computer-enabled simulations, wargames and predictive modeling now promise to reduce that risk by making it possible to test and re-test decisions in a risk-free environment.

Major advances in decision-support technology have been funded by the world’s corporations and militaries, but the peacebuilding community tends to view these tools as prohibitively expensive or overly technical. Given the growing importance of collaboration between NGOs, civilian agencies, militaries, and civil society, tools that enhance coordination and reduce uncertainty must play an ever-greater role in international efforts to manage armed conflict.

Experience Best-in-Class Decision-Support Technologies

The full-day event will feature presentations by designers of a wide variety of cutting-edge, best in class “serious games” and simulation tools with potential peacebuilding applications:

1. Immersive facilitated wargames for the military (Army War College)
2. Sophisticated videogames for non-violent civil resistance (“A Force More Powerful”)
3. Live post-conflict simulations with computer models (SENSE-IDA)
4. Open-source simulation platforms for conflict management (USIP)
5. Web-based simulations for conflict resolution (ICONS)
6. Predictive analytics and modeling for business intelligence (IBM tent.)

Attendees will have hands-on access to all the presented tools. We will also examine the potential to develop a next generation of serious games and simulations that could be widely adopted by the peacebuilding community, with several goals in mind:
1. Improving coordination among disparate organizations by working through scenarios for intervention and reconstruction in a risk-free simulated environment.
2. Improving the international community’s ability to prevent conflict by sensing signals of potential violence.
3. Improving the allocation of scarce peacebuilding resources by using cutting-edge decision modeling tools.

Please attend, and be part of USIP’s effort to adapt the state-of-the-art tools of the military and business to the needs of the peacebuilding community.